I don't cook at all, so you can imagine how bored I must have been to be flipping through an issue of Gourmet magazine while snacking one afternoon.  And there it was, a throwaway line on a page of random interesting facts about food:  chocolate is a better cough suppressant than codeine.

Wow!  I immediately sprang to my computer to Google the study that had made this discovery that would obviously change my life.  And what I found was a study dating back to 2004, stating that the amount of theobromine in three ounces of dark chocolate suppresses coughing for four hours, by inhibiting the nerve that causes the urge to cough.

2004?  Why aren't Hershey's and Nestle's all over this?  Aren't I the paradigmatic person who should be informed of this discovery - a woman with enough disposable income to buy as much chocolate as her conscience will allow?  A woman with five kids who cough from November to May, who has been freaking out over the recent articles about kids dying from cold medicine?

By the way, this benefit is in addition to those chocolate consumers get from flavonols, which reduce heart attacks and inhibit the growth of cancer cells.  And dark chocolate has twice as many antioxidants as red wine.  In fact, I'm expecting any day the finding that not eating chocolate is really what's bad for you.